The Favorite Poem Project
by BohemianCane04
Summary: A fun thing I did for school, basically it's a series of interviews conducted by the Authoress me to all our favorite bohemians about their favorite poems. Chapter nine: Roger wraps things up talking about the poet of rock and roll, Jim Morrison
1. Angel

_**A/N: It's been a real long time since I've posted anything on this site so I hope you guys like this. I don't own RENT or this poem! Please review.**_

Angel Dumott Schunard, 21, Street Musician/Artist

When I decided I wanted to interview the Peeps for the Favorite Poem Project I organized the names alphabetically so as not to show favoritism. It's ironic then that the first person drawn was the first fanfic character I ever met. I wait patiently on the couch for Angel to enter the living room. I had told everyone that we'd conduct these interviews wherever they felt comfortable. Angel, in her usual flexibility and indecisiveness, said, "Wherever."

So I lie sprawled across the red leather couch idly pushing buttons on my tape recorder for a few minutes before a melodious voice trills:

"Today for you, tomorrow for me!"

I sit up grinning as she strikes a dramatic pose in the doorway, tall and curvaceous as a perfume bottle. Always dressed to the nines, today she sports a billowy white chemise above a _very_ long pleated skirt colored differing shades of red. She has selected one color perfectly with which to paint her soft, wide lips, and contrast against the softer blush and eye shadow powdered across cinnamon skin. Her earrings dangle, her shoes glisten with rhinestone flare and she's clipped her ebony bob back behind her ears with a red glittered barrette. She swings her plastic pickle tub over her shoulder as she marches to where I sit. Even though I gave her a drum set of her own, plus ever other percussion instrument imaginable, she won't let that beat up thing go. She puts it bottom up on the floor and plops down next to me on the sofa, wrapping me in a tight one armed hug and kicking her legs excitedly.

"You okay, honey?"

This is her way of saying hello. I offer up the traditional reply.

"I'm afraid so. Better now that you're here."

"Aw, _mi chica bonita,_" she beams. "God, I feel like we haven't talked in ages."

We had talked just that morning, but I know she's right. The truth is Angel and I haven't had a one on one character conference in months. The story I wrote around her at fourteen had done so well on the web I thought she'd be the only character I ever needed. But somehow it didn't work out that way. I had started another fic under the pressure of the first and abandoned it quickly. New characters came and my real life moved forward. I'll never get rid of the guilt I feel about Angel, but she, for her part, never complains. All she says is, "Whatever happens happens, honey. If we find time we'll do it. If we don't we won't." That's just how Angel is. Easy, confident, happy.

"Shall we begin?" she asks now. I nod excitedly and set my recorder on the coffee table. She slides to the floor, takes two drumsticks out of the tub and rights it. She's got something planned. I press record.

"Okay so how does this work, I read then you ask me questions? Or do we talk first?"

"Read it first," I decide. "Then you're answers will be clearer."

"All right then. This poem is called 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me' by Ms. Maya Angelou."

I smile. I had known she'd pick something by Angelou. For a moment there's a silence as she situates herself, curling her body around the drum as if it were a lover. I lean forward on the couch, licking my lips, an addict hungry for poetry. She smiles at me, then takes the sticks tightly in her limber, scarlet-fingered hands and closes her eyes. She begins a slow, simple rhythm on the plastic surface, like something out of the old black spirituals I half remember from elementary school music class. _Bum-bum bah! Bum-bum bah!_ Then, after a bar, she recites. Slow, steady, to the rhythm she's created.

"_Shadows on the wall  
Noises down the hall  
Life doesn't frighten me at all  
Bad dogs barking loud  
Big ghosts in a cloud  
Life doesn't frighten me at all,_

I go boo  
Make them shoo  
I make fun  
Way they run  
I won't cry  
So they fly  
I just smile  
They go wild  
Life doesn't frighten me at all."

She winks at me, still keeping her hands on beat. I giggle and she grins, then pauses before going on.

"_Tough guys in a fight_

_All alone at night  
Life doesn't frighten me at all.  
Panthers in the park  
Strangers in the dark  
No, they don't frighten me at all."_

Slowly, gradually, she softens the volume of her beat. When she speaks again her voice is a whisper. She opens her eyes and I gasp as I see tears.

"_That new classroom where  
Boys all pull my hair  
(Kissy little girls  
With their hair in curls)"_

The beat stops. Angel reaches up, places her hands inside the dark bob, and removes it. The true hair underneath is cropped short, as dark as the wig, and I am forced to remember something that every day comes as a surprise. Under the rouge and glittering jewels, Angel is not a girl. My friend holds the wig above her head like some royal crown and whispers:

"_They don't frighten me at all."_

As quickly as it happened, it's over. She replaces her wig, redoes the barrette, picks up the sticks and plays that simple rhythm. _Bum-bum, bah! Bum-bum, bah!_ It's louder and faster than before.

"_Don't show me frogs and snakes  
And listen for my scream,  
If I'm afraid at all  
It's only in my dreams._

I've got a magic charm  
That I keep up my sleeve,  
I can walk the ocean floor  
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn't frighten me at all  
Not at all  
Not at all.  
Life doesn't frighten me at all"

She finishes with a spectacular drum role and I leap up off the couch clapping. She laughs and comes back to the couch to hug me.

"Good God Angel, you're gonna make me cry here!" I burst out. "Jeez."

She laughs again.

"All right so let's lighten the mood a little, shall we?"

"Please. So ah, when did this poem find you?"

"Well it was published in nineteen…seventy eight I think so I was three years old. My mother was a huge, huge Angelou addict and was constantly reading her works aloud to me. But the first time I ever really paid attention to it was when I was around thirteen when I met my _chica_ Mimi."

I smile. Mimi Marquez, another _RENT_er, is a Latin dancer and Angel's self proclaimed "soul sister." She's signed on to the project too.

"You may not know this," Angel says. "But her mother cleaned house for my mother. That's how we met."

"Really? Wow, I didn't know that."

Prior to his coming out, Angel had lived in Westport as part of a wealthy family, something this wild bohemian is now embarrassed to admit. I don't know much about Mimi's past; only that it's not a rosy picture.

"Anyway, while Mrs. Marquez worked, Mimi would jump rope on the street outside. Lord, lord, that girl was _addicted_ to the rope. Anyway it turned out she'd heard the poem at school and thought it would make a good rhyme. I came home from school one day and heard her singing it just like that. But she forgot a line and stepped on her line. Well stubborn little Mimi, you know how she is. She wouldn't get jumping again until she could remember it. So I went over and fed it to her. Ever since that minute, that second, we've been like this."

She crosses her fingers. I laugh.

"Do you remember which line?" I ask jokingly and she bats her hand and snorts.

"Oh that's easy. It was the line about "panthers in the park." I remember because she lived right near a park growing up and told me she'd never seen a panther in it."

She laughs at the memory and so do I. I imagine the two of them; the now voluptuous Mimi a scrawny eleven year old under a veil of brown curls and Angel a gentle eyed, spaghetti limbed boy as they stood outside his house among the maple trees and old fashioned lampposts. So much has changed.

As if reading my thoughts, Angel suddenly sighs wistfully. She looks away from me towards something on the ceiling, eyes glazing over as she tumbles through memory.

"Then as we got older things changed on us," she murmurs. "I left town and lost little Mimi. Then…well you know what happened, nothing very good. But I kept this poem written on my heart all that time. No matter how hard times got, and were they ever hard, I remembered Ms. Maya's words, the way I had when those boys in the classroom hurt me the way they hurt her. Her own poem became that magic charm she'd been talking about. All I had to do was say it. _Life doesn't frighten me_. It really works. More years passed and soon there wasn't as much hardship. Mimi and I found each other again and our friendship was as strong as ever. In a city of eight million people, imagine!" She chuckles softly. "Life is funny sometimes."

I just nod. She sighs again and turns her head, looking down to the floor. Suddenly her face looks a little more tired, creased with lines that weren't there before.

"I guess whatever Mimi and I took from the poem still binds us. We're older now but not necessarily braver or wiser. We've both got our ghosts and our panthers and shadows on the wall. And we know it's never gonna be over. But we won't let life frighten us."

As she speaks these words she looks down sadly and strokes the red satin ribbon pinned to the corner of her blouse. Mimi has one too. They never take them off. I feel an ache at the back of my throat as I ask the question:

"Why do you love this poem, Ang?"

She looks back at my eyes with that same smile. Not sad really, but resigned, determined.

"Because when I think of it I remember where my heart is. I can't be a ray of golden sunshine without a little help now and again ya know!"

She tosses her hair and bats her eyes and with my giggles the spell over the room is broken. Then suddenly we hear a sharp beeping go off. Angel looks down at her waist and pusses the button on the little black box at her waist.

That's the beeper the doctors gave Angel when she was just eighteen with the first of many amber bottles.

"Ooh," she squeaks. "Time to improve my quality of life. Sorry, sweetie, I gotta break for a minute."

"Oh, no, no that's okay. I think we can stop." I punch a button on my recorder. Angel's nose wrinkles as she smiles.

"Okay. Thanks, Livvy. This was fun, what a great idea. If you need anything else don't you hesitate to ask!"

She bops me on the nose with her index finger, then picks up the drum slings it over her shoulder. Before she leaves the room I can't resist the urge to call:

"_Te amo, Angel!_"

She looks back over her shoulder, the ends of her jet black hair brushing past one smooth, glowing cheek.

"_Te amo tambien,_" she replies, winking and sashays out the door.

☼☼☼


	2. Benny

**A/N: Benny isn't mine, he belongs to Jonathan of course. This poem belongs entirely to Miss Nikki Giovanni. I only got one review for the last chapter come on people, I know you're out there!**

Benjamin Coffin III, 34, Real Estate Broker

Benny is someone I _did not_ expect to say yes to the project. He mostly keeps to himself among the gang, being by nature more on the introverted side. He's decided not to hang around here much. On top of that the others don't find him very likable, even those in the RENT group. Even though I disagree, liking him quite a bit and feeling flattered that he'd come back just to humor me, nothing about him ever said poetry to me. But then, I guess that's the point, to show how poetry can touch anyone.

Benny had asked very politely if we could do the interview away from everybody else. "I don't want Roger to know I'm into poetry," he'd confessed bashfully. "I'm in the closet." Roger gives Benny an especially hard time because of an affair between Benny and Mimi when she and Roger were on the rocks. I decided not to tell Benny that Roger was lined up as my last meeting.

Now he and I sit alone in my living room. The lights are low and the rain storm outside casts the whole room in a shroud of silvery light. Benny is across from me, perched on one of my mother's wrought iron chairs. He leans forward, shoulders hunched and rounded under his black sweater, and chews his bottom lip distractedly, looking half at me and half at his hands twisting in his lap.

"I'm a little nervous," he mumbles.

"Aw, don't be, Ben," I smile as I push "record." "Nobody's going to hear this but me."

He smiles halfheartedly.

"Never done this kind of thing before," he says. His voice is low, a deep alto with a light edge. I have a belief that black men make everything sound like love. Caught up in it I find myself saying:

"If you don't want to do it, you don't have to you know."

"No it's fine," he protests. "It's a cool idea. I wouldn't want you to think I was just some corporate drone. I got a little poetry in me too. Just about enough."

He's kidding around with me, but for some reason the words makes me sad.

"Hey, that's what this is for. Go when it feels good, okay?"

He lets out a breath and looks down at the piece of paper rolled over his leg.

"This is called, 'Just a New York Poem' by Nikki Giovanni," he says.

"_I wanted to take_

_Your hand and run with you_

_Together toward_

_Ourselves down the street to your street_

_I wanted to laugh aloud_

_And skip the notes past_

_The marquee advertising "women_

_In love" past the record_

_Shop with "The Spirit_

_In The Dark" past the smoke shop_

_Past the park and no_

_Parking today signs_

_Past the people watching me in_

_My blue velvet and I don't remember_

_What you wore but only that I didn't want_

_Anything to be wearing you_

_I wanted to give_

_Myself to the cyclone that is_

_Your arms_

_And let you in the eye of my hurricane and know_

_The calm before_

_And some fall evening_

_After the cocktails_

_And the very expensive and very bad_

_Steak served with day-old baked potatoes_

_After the second cup of coffee taken_

_While listening to the rejected_

_Violin player_

_Maybe some fall evening_

_When the taxis have passed you by_

_And that light sort of rain_

_That occasionally falls_

_In New York_ _begins_

_You'll take a thought_

_And laugh aloud_

_The notes carrying all the way over_

_To me and we'll run again_

_Together_

_Toward each other_

_Yes?_"

The deep low voice ceases its reading and I am shaken a little outside the world of the poem. Benny looks back at me with a shy expression, as though he's wondering whether or not he did something wrong.

"That was it," he says.

"That was great," I reply, meaning it. He grins.

"Well, good, hard part's over." We both chuckle.

"So how'd this poem find you?" I ask.

He seems a little puzzled by the way I phrase the question, but says nothing about it.

"I read this poem for the first time when I was…ah I think a freshman in college. I was going to Brown University and I was taking a course in African American literature. Um…truth be told I thought it was a really useless course. I've never been much for English, as you can probably guess, especially poetry."

He laughs nervously as I give him a falsely reproachful look, but plunges on in spite of it.

"I know, I know. I mean I always felt like it was irrelevant to me personally. Learning about rhyme and meter has nothing to do with going to business school. And then we started reading Giovanni. We read a whole book of her work and I was like you know "whatever" about it. Then I graduated and moved to New York with Mark and Collins and Roger. And I remember one day just stepping off the train after living there about a month and looking around and thinking to myself, _this is the most beautiful town on the face of the earth._ And for some reason I'll never know, the whole poem just came flooding back to me. I went out and bought the book it was in for like a quarter because we had no money and even the food we bought was used."

He laughs to himself.

"And I just kept reading it over and over. Every time I read it I find something new about it. I love how clearly Giovanni shows you what she sees and how she makes everything very beautiful but in a grounded sense. Even things that shouldn't traditionally be beautiful, you know? _The rejected violin player._ _The expensive and very bad steak served with day old baked potatoes._ Like how New York is that, you know? I also really feel her overwhelming love to the person she's writing to. I, uh, I never really got that part until I met my wife Alison. We met when I was twenty six and she was twenty one. Her father was our landlord and uh…and he was a real asshole. Kinda like me actually." He chuckles quietly, sadly. "Sometimes I think the only reason she wanted to date me in the first place was to piss him off. How could she know I'd end up loving him more than her?"

He looks past me, rubbing his face nervously. Maybe he'll cry.

"Somehow we fell in love. Not at the very beginning and definitely not at the end but somewhere in the middle, after the third or fourth date. Once that happened I…I totally understood the love going through the poem. I realized wanted to run with Alison and show her the New York that I, and Giovanni, saw. So run we did and just like Giovanni said, when I was with her I felt 'the calm before.' And that vulnerability at the end, that question, that 'Yes?' I felt that too. That feeling of wanting a person so badly but fearing they'll refuse. It was just me, her and New York in those days."

He stops suddenly and looks back as though he'd forgotten I was there.

"So tell me why you love the poem."

I use on him that same gentle voice that I had on Angel. Benny sighs.

"I love this poem because it brings together my two great loves, New York and my wife. No matter what I've done to them both I'll always love them."

I nod and push stop on the recorder.

"Thanks, Benny."

"You're welcome," he replies with only the slightest hint of emotion.

We gather up our things in silence. I can see he's very deep in thought. Then as I start to walk away he calls:

"I read it to her."

I turn.

"We'd been going out for a month. I read it to her. Then she made love to me for the first time."

My face breaks into a grin.

"See that? Poetry gets you laid."

He laughs.

Yeah, I definitely like Benny.

₤ ₤ ₤


	3. Collins

**A/N Poem not mine, Collins not mine (I just borrow him to cuddle with!) Many many thanks to those of you who reviewed! Especially to angel718 who reviewed both times! On we go.**

Tom Collins, 34, Professor of Philosophy, Computer Programmer, Vagabond Anarchist

There is only one place from which I could conduct my interview with Collins; from his lap. Cross legged on top of his khakis with my head leaning against the brawny chest, looking straight up into those glowing brown eyes it's easy to see how Angel fell in love with him after only a few hours. We're sitting on a faded green armchair that completely clashes with the red walls of my father's library. It gets the most light of any room in the house and the early evening sunset is pouring through the windows.

"Your daddy's my kinda guy if he can read as many books as this," Collins says shaking his head.

"When I was little I used to think every book in the world was in here."

He grins at me. Collins has the best grin ever; as wide and sparkling as the Cheshire Cat. When he smiles his brown, leathery face opens wide with gladness and his eyes scrunch up almost closed. Everyone says that Collins is the "big brother of the entire world." He wants only to take care of and keep happy all those smaller than him. That's almost everyone.

"So Collins," I ask. "What is your favorite poem?"

"My favorite poem is Henry David Thoreau's 'I am the Autumnal Sun.'"

"Thoreau! Why didn't I guess?"

He laughs, low like thunder but sweet and slow and amber warm like honey.

"Remember English last year?" he asks. I nod, rolling my eyes.

"Boy, do I ever. What a day."

Last year my teacher Mrs. Rossi covered a big chunk of Thoreau with us. It came out of a battered, paperback textbook thick as a bible. But even with its girth the type was so small the philosopher's long rambling sentences crowded together like tiny boats seen from a dock half a mile away. To make matters worse, that night I got sick with a terrible fever as I tried to comprehend the reading. Collins sat up all night with me and explained it sentence by sentence, then helped me write my first paper of the year. Knocked Mrs. Rossi's socks off and cemented me as the head of the class. I could listen to him talk for ages.

"Read it to me?"

The way I say it it's as though I'm asking for a bedtime story rather than an A on a project. Collins smiles and removes a slim volume from his side. He licks his fingers and turns a few pages. Then in that beautiful African drum voice he begins.

"_I am the Autumnal sun,  
With Autumn gales my race is run.  
When will the hazle put forth its flowers,  
And the grape ripen under my bowers?  
When will the harvest and the hunter's moon  
Turn my midnight_ _into midnoon?  
I am all sere & yellow,  
And to my core mellow.  
The mast is dropping within my woods  
The winter is lurking within my moods  
And the rustling of the withered leaf  
Is the constant music of my grief,  
My gay colored grief,  
My autumnal relief."_

My first thought is that the poem is too short for Collins' beautiful, flowing intonations. I'd expected something more like Whitman's "Song to Myself," long and nonlinear. At least I'm in the right ballpark.

"So I'm sure Angel told you all the stuff I'm going to ask but where did you hear this? I'm sure you read it in college. Going for your degree right?"

"Actually no. First time I heard this poem was my senior year in high school."

Collins removes a cigarette from his pocket. Quickly I go to my father's desk and find the matches inside a baggy with his cigars. I hand it carefully to him.

"_Gracias_, baby. Do you mind?"

"Nah, nah, go right ahead."

He smiles around the cig and lights. The gray, ashy smoke fills the air. I go back to my place in his lap. It's going to get in my clothes and my hair, but I don't mind. Secretly I like the smell of cigarettes. Swirling but sickly. Dirty but light.

"Well…let's see…" He blows out and I can almost see his words in the smoke. "Yeah, it was my senior year and I was seventeen in Richmond Virginia. And um…that was just a mega crazy time for me because high school _has_ to be an absolute torment. You know I was just starting to experiment with being gay in a Southern town. I was really a geek socially and once I thought I might be gay it was like a bomb had hit. I couldn't wait to get out of that place, man. Everybody was so _stupid._ I was filling out collage applications like crazy. I'd go somewhere, anywhere but where I was. And in the middle of all this my father was dying of brain cancer."

I gasp. Collins has never really talked openly about his past before. I'd often wondered where he'd been before college, travel and that freezing East Village flat with Benny, Roger, Mark and Maureen.

The gentle man sees my stunned reaction.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was tough. I was a real family boy so I was devastated. My two older brothers were working four jobs between them because we had no health insurance. Momma was either working or at the hospital. I think we lived on pizza that entire year. I wanted to get a job too but Dad wouldn't let me. I was on track to getting a full scholarship to Brown and no Collins man had ever been to collage. I was my Dad's Atlas. He kept saying all he wanted was to see me graduate."

"Did he?" I ask. He nods absently.

"Yeah. Yeah he did. He watched me take that long ass walk across the stage in the auditorium of that school I hated and he beamed and cried the whole way. And ah…two weeks later he was gone."

He sighs and takes a long drag. Timidly I reach over and put my tiny, cold hand on top of his warm, soft one. It's like a dollop of cream in a steaming cup of coffee.

"After he died the grief I felt was like nothing I'd known before. It was grief but in a way I was happy for him. He'd been in so much pain for so long and it was finally over. And he'd gotten the one thing he wanted before he passed. I made a promise to him at his grave that I was gonna go and make something of myself. But I missed him somethin' fierce."

Another drag. His open, trusting face certainly reflects his words. He looks so sad.

"Just before I had to go away to school I had this major depressive spike. I couldn't believe I was leaving home and he wouldn't be there. So I did what I always do, what you always do too, I went into my books. Emerson, Socrates, Plato, Voltaire one of them had to have the answer. And lo and behold I stumbled across this."

He taps the book gently, as though it were a dog he's petting.

"I stumbled across this poem and found my answer in it."

I lean forward, avidly engrossed.

"How did you feel when you read it?"

"The first time I read it I didn't fully understand it," Collins says thoughtfully. "Even still, I felt as though a fire had been lit inside me. Not that raging, conscious fire that has always roared through me, but a glowing, warm feeling like from a hearth. I felt all those tepid, autumnal colors that flow through the poem. Somehow I _knew._ I knew that this was exactly what my father had felt. He didn't _want_ to leave us but he knew that if he did we'd be all right. And that made him all right in the end."

He's so placid when he says this, so resigned, so totally balanced I could weep with envy. I always thought Collins was someone who had everything figured out. This proves it. I never, ever feel that way.

"Why do you love this poem?"

He rubs the coarse stubble that spreads across his chin and cheeks, smiling tranquilly.

"I love this poem because whenever I read it I get that same warm glow. It gave me a completely new outlook on death. What's wrong with death? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity and, god forbid, maybe even humor? Death is not the enemy, indifference to life is."

"That's from _Patch Adams_," I almost laugh.

"Robin Williams. Another great philosopher. Anyway that's what I felt. I was going to live every last minute of life. It was a lesson that would serve me well later on."

I feel a pang of sadness at that remark. Collins, like his lover and several of his friends, is HIV positive. To keep myself from getting sad, I push 'stop' on the recorder.

"That's great, Collins, really great," I say. "I think we're good. Thanks so much for doing this."

"Aw, it's been my pleasure, baby."

He kisses the top of my head and releases me from his embrace. Before getting up I lean against him and murmur in a low voice not nearly as beautiful as his:

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life. To put to route all that was not life and not, when it had come to pass…"

"…Discover that I had not lived," Collins finishes.

∞∞∞


	4. Joanne

**A/N: OMG you guys thanks bunches for all the reviews!!! It means so much to me. Ok so I have a question for all you awesome people, the next two chapters in the original project are about Juliet and Lily, my OCs from my other RENTfic "Even Angels Fall." You wouldn't have to read the fic but I'm still debating whether to post them or just move on to the others. So I'm leaving it up to you guys. Let me know ok? Cool! Here's Joanne, she's not mine. Neither is the poem. We knew this yes?**

Joanne Jefferson, 30, Attorney

Joanne is one of those capable, self reliant types that keeps to herself but is still sweeter than pie. When I come into her study to meet her she's sitting in her giant swivel chair with her hands folded and a genial smile on her face. I feel like I've just walked into the office of one of those very disarming young psychologists I one day hope to emulate.

"Hey, Olivia, right on time," she smiles.

"I know how much you appreciate punctuality, Joanne," I tease, taking a seat.

On a small table there's a teapot and two mugs, honey and milk. Joanne pours a cup for me and for herself.

"You'll have to forgive me, I'm an addict," she jokes and I laugh, promptly pouring a whopping portion of honey into the tea. She sits down with a brisk, prepared sigh.

"So…" she begins nervously, running half a hand through her tiny spiraling curls.

"So," I reply.

"So I really have to read it, huh?"

I laugh.

"Yes, you really have to read it. Don't worry, if Benny can do this you can too I'll wager."

"Ah ha, don't be so sure. Okay…Here we go. This is a poem by a Greek poetess called Sappho and it's called 'To Aphrodite.'

_IMMORTAL on thy many-splendoured throne  
Hear, Aphrodite Queen, that art  
Zeus' witching daughter; and with pain and moan  
Break not my heart!_

But come, if ever thou hast caught of old  
My distant cry and heard my plea,  
And left thy father's palaces of gold  
To visit me;

And yoked thy chariot, and from heaven forth  
Driven thy sparrows fleet and fair  
With whirr of wings above the swarthy earth  
Through middle air.

How fast they came! Then, Blessed One, didst thou  
With lips divinely smiling ask:  
'What new mischance is come upon thee now?  
Unto what task

'Have I been called? what is the dearest aim  
Of thy mad heart? who is to be  
Persuaded to thy passion? Sappho, name  
Thine enemy!

'For whoso flies thee now shall soon pursue;  
Who spurns thy gifts shall give anon;  
And whoso loves thee not, whate'er she do,  
Shall love thee soon.'

Ah, come then, and release me from alarms  
That crush me: all I long to see  
Fulfilled, fulfil! A very mate-in-arms  
Be thou to me."

She rushes uncertainly through the reading and trips over the word 'whate'er.' But she gives such a sigh of relief once she finishes that I don't have the heart to ask her to read it again.

"Sorry, she shrugs bashfully. "I'm no good with public speaking unless it's in front of a judge."

"No big you did great. Okay first question, how did this poem find you?"

She leans back into her soft chair, visibly relaxing, resting against its arms.

"The first time I read this poem I was in the eighth grade so I was thirteen." She looks up at the ceiling, trying to recall. "I was doing this mega project for my social studies class on women in ancient Greece. I wrote about how they weren't aloud to compete in the Olympics and how many children they were expected to have and how many of their husbands were secretly gay and blah blah blah. And I was supposed to have a section on the arts. Well women couldn't flourish there either unless you count posing naked while being optically devoured at by male artists so I was kind of screwed."

"A feminist even then huh?" I laugh.

"Ugh, the opposite sex has always been repellent to me," she answers dismissively as though she knows every woman truly feels this way. "Anyway, I was a little jammed until I found an article in an encyclopedia about Sappho who was like the only famous female poet in Greek history. She was bisexual, which was an absolutely scandalous delight to little junior high goody two shoes me. She had committed suicide by jumping off the cliff of a mountain and of all the poems she wrote only a few full ones remain. This is one obviously but the rest are just little scraps belonging to larger poems which no one has discovered. I thought the idea of that was really mysterious and beautiful. And as for the surviving poetry, I was really amazed by the staying power of it. Like this was written in the seventh century b.c. and we're sitting here today hundreds and hundreds of years later talking about it. Even then the idea of being immortal in that way was an incredible thing to me."

I nod deeply. She's given this more thought than I would have expected.

"Okay. So I'm wondering, why this poem in particular?"

She drums her fingers on the armrest thinking about it.

"I think it became more specifically this poem when Sappho made her reprise in my life when I was in my last year at Harvard. That was the first time I had ever been with a woman romantically. I'll never forget, her name was Aphrodite Kinestakis and she was my roommate."

"How convenient!"

"Yeah I know, stroke of luck right? Anyway, I'd known for a while that I was gay, at least since my senior year in high school, but I'd never acted on it. I was so terrified of coming out you can't even imagine."

It's true. I really can't imagine Joanne being terrified of anything except maybe admitting she's terrified. She always seemed so open, so flippant about who she is I would have thought it was an easy transition for her.

"It wasn't so much my parents. That's what a lot of people think. They're big libs so I wasn't worried about being disowned or anything horrible like that. It was more about….the rest of the world I guess. I had always known I would have to work even harder than average to get where I wanted to be both as a woman and an African American.—I don't care what anyone says, racism and sexism are still alive in this country."

She says it forcefully, as though I would challenge her on it.

"But now I was a lesbian too? I mean, I didn't know what to do. So I hid for many years thinking it would just go away. Denial is such a wonderful thing isn't it?"

She sighs to herself. When she continues, her voice is softer, almost wistful.

"But when I met Aphrodite everything changed. I'd never loved anyone so much. She was just what I needed; an absolute beauty but with the drive of a bull. She opened up a whole new world for me. She was so patient and loving, never pushed. When I was with her I felt safe."

I can't help feeling shocked at the way Joanne's describing this girl. I've seen Maureen talk about her exes in front of Joanne and pine over nearly everything that moves. I always secretly felt that Joanne deserved much better. But listening to her talk it's almost like a secret revenge, a mental adultery to a better point in her life. Maybe this is why she'll never leave Maureen.

"Anyway," Joanne continues. "During the spring of that year her birthday came up. I wanted to do something special for her. When I asked her what she wanted she said, 'I want you to make yourself happy.' I insisted I was. She said, 'What's the one thing you really want? It would make me happy on my birthday if you got what you really wanted.' Well there was only one thing in the world I really wanted and that was to come out totally. I wanted to tell the world I'd fallen in love, but mostly I wanted to tell Aphrodite. So I went and found this poem and while we were alone that night I let her read it. I still remember how the lamplight looked across her face. And the shadows on the walls as we sat there together. She started to cry and told me that she loved me. When I left I was absolutely flying. I felt like I could take down the moon. So I went straight to a payphone and called my dad and I just told him. He said I was his little girl forever, no matter what. I'm grateful every day for that kind acceptance."

She sighs happily, remembering as though it happened yesterday.

"So why do you love this poem?" I ask.

"I love this poem because when I read it I'm reminded of that time in my life. I think of that year as being when I really discovered myself. I read it when I get down sometimes to clarify my focus and rejuvenate me. Sometimes with Maureen I need a lot of rejuvenation."

I burst out laughing and she groans good naturedly.

"What happened to Aphrodite?" I ask.

"We broke up after college," she replies evenly. "She was over in Europe and the distance just got to us, but it was a mutual decision. We still have a really solid friendship. We call each other when ever we need to be reassured the world isn't totally insane."

"It's nice you can laugh not all relationships end so well." I hope there isn't _too_ much cynicism in how I say this. I guess there isn't because she just nods with an understanding smile.

"What's that thing you always say? 'There are more forms of love than moments in time.' Sometimes the love and the moment just meld. That's how that whole year was for me."

"Measure your life in love, right?"

"Exactly."

♀♀♀


	5. Juliet

**A/N: Bet you've never seen a disclaimer like this before I ACTUALLY OWN THIS CHARACTER! Juliet is from my other fic, you don't have to read it in order to read this, promise. The poem isn't mine though, neither is _Dead Poets Society_ (damn!)**

**Ten reviews baby, I'm in the double digits::dances:: Thanks a whole bunch to all of you who took the time, I hope you like this too.**

Juliet Sanchez, 17, Aspiring Artist

Juliet wants her interview conducted in her studio, a huge sun kissed room housing a plethora of half finished paintings and drawings, songs and writings. The other peeps call her Juliet-of-all-Trades. She always has at least three projects going and devotes equal time and obsession to each, like a mother with triplets. When I come in her lanky form is standing high on a ladder fixing a mobile to the ceiling.

"Be careful up there," I call.

She looks around for the source of the voice and waves vigorously at me. Without a word, quiet, elegant Juliet sidles down the ladder and lands before me, wrapping me in a quick hug. Whenever we see each other it's as though it's been months.

"You ready for me, _amiga_?"

"I'm _never_ ready for you, Julietta." I put my hand to my eyes and reel back mockingly. "I cannot see! I am blinded by the beauty!"

She play slaps me, but I'm only half kidding. She's my age but she has the beauty of a woman of twenty five. Flawless marble face housing high cheekbones and a pair of sparkling blue eyes framed by a tide of black wavy hair. Her curvy body is cloaked entirely in a purple sundress tied with a blood red sash. Absolutely perfect, inside and out.

"All right then, let's have some fun. I put a chair out for you."

"What about you?"

"Oh," she says with extra sparkle coming to her eyes. "I won't be sitting for this one."

With that she pirouettes across the room, skirt billowing, and spreads her arms.

"My recitation today will be a selection from my favorite poem, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay's 'The Congo.' This first stanza is called 'Their Basic Savagery.'"

I feel like there should be dimming lights. This is so avant garde. When Juliet looks up it's as though she's addressing a room of thousands. She begins to clap her hands in a slow rhythm, similar to the one Angel played on her drum, and sings an a low, rolling alto like my own.

"_FAT black bucks in a wine-barrel room,_

_Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,_

_Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,_

_Pounded on the table,_

_Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,_

_Hard as they were able,_

_Boom, boom, BOOM,_

_With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,_

_Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM."_

There's a silent interlude of just claps for half a beat, then she goes on but her voice has changed. She chants the next lines on beat with her hands. I'm struck when I recognize them.

"_THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision._

_I could not turn from their revel in derision._

_THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK_

_CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK!_

_THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK_

_CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK!"_

Still clapping, arms over her head, she begins to twirl across the dusty, paint splattered floor. As she moves she returns to the singing vibrato.

"_Then along that riverbank _

_A thousand miles _

_Tattooed cannibals danced in files; _

_Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song _

_And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong."_

Suddenly she stops dead and her eyes snaps open as though she's been shocked. I feel myself jump. Before this even has time to register, my eyes take in a streak of violet floating through the air as she executes a perfect leap onto a three legged stool in the corner. I gasp, but she takes no notice, just goes on with the words, spitting them out rapid fire with great urgency.

_And 'BLOOD!' screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, _

'_BLOOD!' screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors; _

'_Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, _

_Harry the uplands, _

_Steal all the cattle, _

_Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, _

_Bing! _

_Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM!'_

_A roaring, epic, rag-time tune."_

She pauses, looking thoughtful. She continues in a contemplative tone, looking at folded hands.

"_From the mouth of the Congo_

_To the Mountains of the Moon._

_Death is an Elephant."_

Again her eyes go wide and fearful as she delves into the hard-edged metaphor in a shrill voice.

"_Torch-eyed and horrible, _

_Foam-flanked and terrible._

_BOOM, steal the pygmies, _

_BOOM, kill the Arabs, _

_BOOM, kill the white men." _

She stomps her foot to accent each BOOM, but on the last stomp with her foot in the air she starts again to slowly twirl around and around. I have long since faded away from her consciousness and, in truth, my own as well. I am held hostage to this brilliant work of art.

"_HOO, HOO, HOO._" She moans like an owl or a ghost.

"_Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost_

_Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host._

_Hear how the demons chuckle and yell_

_Cutting his hands off, down in Hell._

_Listen to the creepy proclamation,_

_Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,_

_Blown past the white-ants' hill of clay,_

_Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:—_

'_Be careful what you do_

_Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,_

_And all of the other_

_Gods of the Congo,_

_Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,_

_Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you_

_Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.'"_

Her voice and steps and claps all gradually slow together and then fade into absolute silence. Juliet stops and opens her eyes.

"And that's it," she says, shrugging.

For a minute I'm stunned speechless. That's it? _That's it?_ I leap to my feet and applaud.

"Bravo! Bravo! Encore!"

"Ugh God, no encore," she laughs as she flops onto the stool with an exhausted sigh.

"That was incredible! How did you—When did you?"

"When I was eleven my dad enrolled himself in one of these dance yoga class type things. I'd already been taking ballet for three years at that point but I begged him to sign me up too. We did a lot of different cultural dances, especially African."

"Did you learn the poem there too?"

"Actually no," she answers, running her hand through her dark mane. "I learned the poem because of those three lines they use in _Dead Poets Society_."

"I knew it!" I burst out, giving her a hardy high five. "The scene where they're all chanting it!"

"Best movie _ever_, girl, you know! Anyway that's where I heard part of it. And I just loved the movie so much, but of all the excerpts of poetry that was used in the movie, for some reason that one just stuck in my head for days. Maybe it was the rhythm of it I don't know. So I went and looked it up. I had no idea but it was this amazing, long intricate piece of work. It amounts to like five pages typed I think and I read the whole thing over and over and over for a long time. It was just incredible to me. It begged to be read out loud; there are even little notes written into the sidelines on how different sections should be read, which I tried to use while practicing for this little performance piece or whatever you want to call it."

She laughs. How can she possibly just shrug off this thing off? I'm still amazed by it.

"So why do you love this poem?"

"I love this poem because of its dramatic elements. It's poetry, but it's auditory, but the language of it makes it visual. It's a poem about bloodlines, about race, about all those centuries of existence each person unknowingly carries. Those can be a huge source of strength at times. I also found it really amazing that it was written by a white man in the time it was written. He has such an understanding of a culture he doesn't belong to, and wrote this in a time period where _no one_ had that understanding. I think it's important for writers to cross over into new places and mind frames so they can push others to do so as well."

☻☻☻


	6. Tiger Lily

**A/N:** **Another OC chapter. Lily is my girl, the poem isn't. I'd like to send a special message to an unsigned reviewer named Marcie Cohen: Girl, you are amazing why don't you have your own account so I can lavish proper thanks on you? To all my other reviewers please come back. The next chapter is Mark's. We all love him, don't we?**

Lily Dumott, 17, Aspiring Novelist/Singer

Lily, or Tiger Lily, was born Lillian Marie Dumott. But no one ever calls her that—no one who escapes unharmed that is. Angel is her cousin and he gave her that nickname when she started kindergarten to make her feel better about having freckles. He showed her the gorgeous flower and said it too had freckles. Lily never worried again. Now, twelve years later, she looks more like a tiger than a lily. Her shimmering waist length hair is dyed a deep orange and streaked in black and her almond shaped eyes are as green as sea glass. It came as no great surprise to me that when I ask her the favorite poem question she responds with William Blake's "The Tiger."

After about three knocks at her door my redheaded alter-ego appears with large music-studio-sized headphones around her neck.

"Hey honey," she smiles. "Is it my turn?

"You bet it is."

"All right, all right! Let's get crackin'!"

She grabs my arm, full of life as usual and leads me into the room she shares with Juliet. The walls are painted a very soft cantaloupe color but you can't really see it because they've plastered posters, photos and artwork all over the walls. From my angle on the bed I see black and white Jim Morrison pouting gloomily at me. Lily jumps up from the couch in a quick blast of fire and whooshes over to her little mini fridge. She squats down for a moment and then turns to throw me a coke.

"No way, Lil. You know my hand eye coordination is less than zero."

"I know, I know," she laughs. "Just kidding."

She snaps hers open and takes a long swig with closed eyes. She should be in the commercial.

I snap the soda and focus very hard on wrenching off the tab. I hold it up to look at the initial and Lily giggles.

"What's it say?"

It's a superstition among the Peeps that the little letter stamped on a soda can tab is the first letter in the name of your true love. I'm willing to take whatever I can get.

"L," I answer, holding it up for her.

"L for Lily!" she claps. "Yay! We're soul mates, Livia!"

"Well I always knew we were anyway," I grin.

"Aw, glomp!"

She tackles me and I hug her tight, inhaling her sweet perfume. 'Happy' is her signature scent. Once she sits next to me she brushes her hair from her eyes and says:

"So, olive tree, shall we commence with the reading?"

"I wait with bated breath." For some reason I'm laughing. Her happy mood has always been contagious. She skips to the middle of the room just as her girlfriend had done. It's amazing sometimes how love brings resemblance to people who wouldn't otherwise have it. Maybe it's only because im so used to seeing them together.

Lily sinks to her knees in the middle of the floor and with a sultry look in her eyes and on the curve of her mouth.

"_TIGER! Tiger! burning bright,  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

In what distant deeps or skies  
Burned the fire of thine eyes?  
On what wings dare he aspire?  
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,  
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?  
And when thy heart began to beat,  
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain?  
In what furnace was thy brain?  
What the anvil? what dread grasp  
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,  
And watered heaven with their tears,  
Did he smile his work to see?  
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

She slinks over to me on her hands and I pull her up onto the bed, hugging her close.

"Brava, _ma belle_," I smile. "A command performance as always."

"I would not dare disappoint you, my love. Now ask away! This is such fun."

"I'm glad you think so. Okay first question: when did you first hear it?"

"Oh I remember totally. I went to the Bronx Zoo with my mom and dad on my birthday when I turned nine. One of the only things I remember doing with them actually."

She forces a smile and goes on.

"While we were there the thing I wanted more than anything was to see the Bengal Tigers. So we finally get there and there are just these two glorious, beautiful animals behind the glass, a male and a female. And the female was lying sprawled out on her side and the male was licking her. It was incredible. He had such a human look in his eyes like you could see he loved her. And I thought about how these animals could bring down prey and rip it to shreds but still feel love for their mates. It was so moving, so human. I started to cry. Mom freaked, she thought I was having a heat stroke. But my dad, he just put his hand on my shoulder and he recited the poem the whole thing right from memory. That was cool."

She lies down on her back in front of me and puts her head in my lap so we look right into one another's eyes.

"I've never seen a tiger for real," I confess. "But I felt like that when I saw a giraffe once. That was at the Bronx too actually."

"See that? It's a place where miracles happen," she laughs. "No, it really is though. Seeing animals like that, these beautiful creatures from the four corners of the world. It really is a spiritual experience. And if you read like the scholarly accounts of the poem that's totally the point. They say it's a poem about God and creation and I believe it. Blake is addressing the tiger as if it were this divine, almost celestial thing. He's asking it in effect like 'What could create something as amazing as you are?' When I saw that tiger I felt the same thing. I thought, 'God must be pretty powerful if he can make something like this happen."

"I felt the same way the other morning when I was riding to school watching the sun come up. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. Then I looked out the other window and the full moon was still glowing on the other side of the sky. I have a feeling I'll feel that way again looking at the person I fall in love with."

"Exactly!" Lily says. "There are so many beautiful things in this universe, Livvy, so many miracles. Hell, look at us!"

I laugh loudly and play with her pin straight hair.

"Well I don't know about me," I murmur. "You definitely are though.

"Ah no, no, no, olive tree, you too. Most assuredly you are a miracle too."

We sit in silence for a while when the chorus of a song I know comes into my head. Still stroking Lily's hair I begin to hum it.

"They say I must be one of the wonders  
Of god's own creation  
And as far as they can see they can offer  
No explanation."

She knows the tune as well and picks it up.

"O, I believe  
Fate smiled and destiny  
Laughed as she came to my cradle  
Know this child will be able  
Laughed as my body she lifted  
Know this child will be gifted  
With love, with patience and with faith  
She'll make her way.

She'll make her way."

жжж


	7. Mark

**A/N: We're back in canon now. This is one of my favorite chapters: Mark! He's not mine of course. Neither is the poem. PLEASE R&R you guys!**

Mark Cohen, 29, Filmmaker

Ever see those t-shirts in Hot Topic that say 'I Dig Scrawny Pale Guys'? Well I'm of the opinion that whoever came up with that slogan was an intimate friend with Mark. There's no other way to describe this sweet guy. Albino fair with white blonde hair and radar point blue eyes behind his glasses, he's one of those people who's so uncool he's cool. He's shy, gentle, a little neurotic, and possesses a voice that goes back to a pre pubescent crack at the end of each sentence. He hates the first person and is edgier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs in his room with me, but I can see he's excited by whatever is going to go down. He's sitting underneath a massive Star Wars poster in one of those cliché director chairs with his right leg jiggling profusely.

"Marky, sweetheart, do you like need a glass of water or something?" I try to bite back a smile. He shakes his head and his glasses slip off his nose.

"This is…a poem that a really awesome person showed me because it reminded them of me. It's been hanging up there over my computer for a year."

He points to the bulletin board splattered with rainbow colored pushpins. Snapshots of the others, quotes for inspiration and personal reminders decorate the wall. Mark holds up the paper with a pin sized hole in the top.

"This is a selection from 'Shooting Script' by Ms. Adrienne Rich," he smiles.

I clap my hands and give a little squeal. He positively beams.

"_We were bound on the wheel of an endless conversation._

_Inside this shell, a tide waiting for someone to enter._

_A monologue waiting for you to interrupt it._

_A man wading into the surf. The dialogue of the rock with the breaker._

_The wave changed instantly by the rock; the rock changed by the wave over and over._

_The dialogue that lasts all night or a whole lifetime._

_A conversation of sounds melting constantly into rhythms._

_A shell waiting for you to listen._

_A tide that ebbs and flows against a deserted continent._

_A cycle whose rhythm begins to change the meaning of words._

_A wheel of blinding waves of light, the spokes pulsing out from_

_where we hang together in a turning of an endless_

_conversation._

_The meaning that searches for its word like a hermit crab._

_A monologue that waits for one listener._

_An ear filled with one sound only._

_A shell penetrated by meaning."_

I clap furiously as he finishes and he goes red.

"Aw Mark!"

I lean forward and hug him around his neck. He's still beaming. I was the one who gave this poem to Mark over a year ago. I didn't really understand most of Rich's work, but this one reminded me so much of the little cameraman I had to print it for him.

"Thought you might like that," he mumbles, playing nervously with the striped scarf around his neck. "So this is my favorite poem because the person who showed it to me is really smart about these things. She said I'd like it and I did!"

I cock an eyebrow.

"Flattery earns you points, Mark, but you still have to do the interview straight."

"How about straight to the door?" he voice-cracks. I roll my eyes and muss up the puffy blond hair.

"Hey! All right, Liv. If you say so."

I smile. Score.

"How do you really feel about this poem? Let's just say this part of it in particular."

"Well to be honest," he mutters. "I really didn't understand the other parts."

I laugh.

"Yeah, tell me about it. _Way_ too philosophical."

"We'll give it to Collins to decipher. Anyway, well there is a real reason…Every time I read this I…I think about Roger. About when he…when he was trying to get off heroin before Mimi. When he found out he was sick."

He looks down at his shoes, takes off his glasses and cleans them with his scarf. I feel suddenly as though I've done something wrong.

"We didn't have money for rehab," Mark explains hurriedly. "So it was just him and me alone in the apartment for almost a year. The first three months was just me convincing him to stop."

His voice drops to a pained whisper. He never looks up.

"Everything she said was how I felt then." He runs his hand absently over the poem. "An endless conversation. Talking to Roger then was like talking to a wall, hitting it over and over. Except this wall sometimes hit back."

I wince.

"I could go through this line by line talking about how pitch-damn-perfect it is." Mark's voice has no emotion. "But I won't. _I won't."_

He says it again as though I've challenged it.

"None of us will ever go back to that place. He was the rock and I was the water. We battled for a year. But eventually he got it. Eventually my meaning penetrated."

He finally looks up a little. Choking back a sob.

"How'd this even happen?" he asks me. I tilt my head. I don't understand. Mark shakes his head and waves the paper at me.

"This is incredible," he says, words in a rush. "She just wrote this down. Just wrote it. We don't know what she really was talking about but _to me_…To me she was right there in that room with us four years ago. I mean it's just incredible."

I smile widely, nodding. Suddenly Mark gets a glint in his eyes and leans forward toward me. He takes both my hands in his. He's the only one here with hands as cold as mine.

"You're gonna write stuff like this, Liv," he says in what could be a very firm voice for Mark. "Great stuff. You're gonna write really amazing stuff that touches people who don't even know you. I think about you too when I read this. I think about both of you."

There's a pause in which a huge lump forms in my throat. Mark and I have never been what you'd call close, not as close as Angel, Burrs or Erik, but every once in a while there's a moment like this. A moment when he shows me, in his own way, how much he believes in me.

Mark believes in everyone.

"Aw Mark!" I say again as I throw my arms around his skinny self. It sounds stupid, like it's not enough, but the way he smiles when he lets me go shows me it is.

"You're the best, spaz," I tell him. He makes a dismissive gesture with his hands and chuckles, looking away but smiling.

Suddenly we're cut off as Roger bursts into the room. Both of us start and turn around. Roger's face changes a little and he starts to back out.

"Oopes sorry I didn't know you guys were—I'll come back."

"No," I get up hastily. "No that's okay we're done." I gather up my things and give Mark a last squeeze. "Mark thanks _so_ much." I pause, then add: "For everything."

He grins.

"I mean it, Liv. For real."

"I know."

Roger looks around confusedly in a swish of shoulder length hair.

"Whatever," he shrugs when we don't give it up. "You silent broody artists are bummin' me out."

"Bye, Rog," I sing as I leave.

Before shutting the door I hear Roger ask:

"So how was it?"

Mark says, "Cakewalk."

▪ ▪ ▪


	8. Maureen

**AN: Screw not getting any reviews. One person asked for an update so here I am. Maureen belongs to Jonathan Larson, God love him. "Music Swims Back to Me" belongs to Anne Sexton. May they both RIP **

Maureen Johnston, 26, Performance Artist

I'm not going to bother to try and describe Maureen the way I have with the others because quite truthfully there's no way to describe this sensual, socially conscious, slightly insane woman with red leather lips and piercing green eyes. All I know is she comes whirling into my bedroom waving her poem in her fist like she's flagging a taxi.

"I'm ready. I'm ready, Livvy!" she beams. "Can we do it now?"

She doesn't wait for an answer but flops down into a full laying position on her back with her crimped hair waving around her like a weird halo.

"Can we do it now, Livvy?" she asks again, sticking her leg straight up in an Ester Williams move and kicking like a rockette.

"Yeah, just a second, Mo," I laugh. Let me set up."

As I get out my recorder she waits with only the slightest degree of patience. The second I return and sit on the bed she bolts up into a ninety degree sitting position, holding the paper in front of her.

"Okay," she says, tossing her hair. "This is a poem by the brilliant Ms. Anne Sexton called 'Music Swims Back to Me.'"

Immediately after announcing the title she leaps to her feet, still on the bed, and holds the poem at arm's length in a sort of mock-Shakespearean pose. She speaks melodically, half singing.

"_Wait Mister._ _Which way is home?  
They turned the light out  
and the dark is moving in the corner.  
There are no sign posts in this room,  
four ladies, over eighty,  
in diapers every one of them.  
La la la, **Oh music swims back to me!**_"

She hollers the last line passionately, burying her fingers in her hair. I do my best to choke on a laugh. Such a drama queen, God love her. Maureen bends her knees methodically, then, still chanting that line begins to jump up and down and around across the leopard printed field of my bed sheets. I'm somewhere laughing and nervous at the same time, and scamper to sit on the floor. Maureen goes on, still hopping, arms in the air and hair flying wild.

"_and_ _I can feel the tune they played  
the night they left me  
in this private institution on a hill. _

_Imagine it. A radio playing  
and everyone here was crazy.  
I liked it and danced in a circle.  
Music pours over the sense  
and in a funny way  
music sees more than I.  
I mean it remembers better;  
remembers the first night here.  
It was the strangled cold of November;  
even the stars were strapped in the sky  
and that moon too bright  
forking through the bars to stick me  
with a singing in the head.  
I have forgotten all the rest. _

_They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.  
and there are no signs to tell the way,  
just the radio beating to itself  
and the song that remembers  
more than I._ _Oh, la la la,  
this music swims back to me.  
The night I came I danced a circle  
and was not afraid.  
Mister? _

Abruptly on that final word she stops, and looks toward the door as though calling 'Mister' back. I'm so stunned that it takes me a second to realize the reading is over. I clap for her, still laughing, and she takes a bow. Her hair touches her violent red toenails.

"Thank you! Thank you!"

"That was cool, Mo," I giggle as she vaults from the bed and sits next to me on the floor.

"Thank you, Livvy."

"Okay so let's talk about it. What makes this your favorite poem?"

"Honestly…I don't know," she laughs. "I love a lot of poets like this, yanno Miss Anne, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf. I don't know if there's a word for that kind of poetry, probably not. But all those writers are very important to me and what I do because they were poets and women during times when it was hard to be either. The world weighed them down and ended up destroying them and it took their deaths to make a bunch of idiots realize their true beauty and greatness and stuff."

All this is said in a rush of talk without as much as a pause. I'm glad this is being recorded because I know I missed at least a few words and I know each of them is important.

"But I think…" She slows down for a second and puts her claw like nails to her lips. "I think the reason this kind of poetry speaks to me is because it's nonlinear. It's not exactly about the words. It's more about the images and the emotions they foster. This kind of poetry has an urgency and a fire and that's why it rocks. That's how I want my work to be. I want people to come to my shows and feel whatever they wanna feel. Whatever matters to them most. They may not get _my_ message or what _I'm_ feeling but that's okay. As long as they get stirred up and psyched by their own feelings I've done my job."

She's actually panting a little when she finishes, but her face is glowing as though she's just won a marathon.

"So that's basically it," she says and before I know it she's getting to her feet.

"So is that good, honey? Can I vamoose? I'm sorry I'm being all rude but _Desperate Housewives_ is on in ten minutes and I wanna change into my pj's."

I blink a little.

"Yeah sure, Maureen. Thanks."

"No problem. This was a blast. Mwuh!"

She kisses my cheek, leaving a big lipstick stain and blows out just as quickly as she came. As I get to my feet I hear her jumping the stairs two at a time. For a minute I just stand there. Then, when Mo's aura has dissipated from the room, I go to my dresser and get a tissue. I wipe the red blotch away from my face. I laugh to myself.

"Damn, Maureen," I mutter. "Just damn."

♀♀♀


	9. Mimi

**AN: Huge thanks to my reviewers for the last chapter. Nice to see you guys back! Special shoutout to Elphie Bubble who guessed this was Mimi's chapter. She belongs to John Larson. The poem isn't mine either.**

Mimi Marquez, 19, Dancer

Miss Mimi may be on the younger side of the Peeps, especially when she's standing next to Roger, but nobody can say it better than she herself did when they first met. "I'm nineteen but I'm old for my age." It's true she's been knocked around her fair share and probably knows more about life than people three times her age. Well now it's time for me to learn a little bit about her.

"Mimi _chica_!" I sing, sticking my head into her room. Roger is sprawled the entire length of their queen bed wearing only his favorite jeans, torn beyond repair, and a guitar pick on some string around his neck. Somehow I know what owes to his lack of vestments.

"Finishing up?" I snort. He grins at me. Men are hopeless.

Mimi appears out of the adjoining bathroom pulling on a pair of brown leggings with her wild curls soaking wet.

"Should I come back, hon?" I ask, hand saucily on my hip. She goes a little red against her tawny complexion.

"No, no, we're done I'm ready. Rog, go away."

"Oh that's real nice, Meems."

He gets up and makes for the door but she stops him.

"Wait just one second; I think I put my poem in your pocket."

I don't want to know. I really don't.

Roger reaches slowly into his pocket and pulls out the folded piece of paper, putting it between his teeth. She growls.

"You are impossible, you know that?" she fumes, snatching it from him. Roger just chuckles and plants a kiss on her mouth. She fights him for a minute but soon melts into it, snaking her arms around his neck. I know far better than to interrupt. After a second Mimi's eye peeks open and she remembers the presence of another life form. She pulls away from him and he makes this barely audible puppy groan, then goes red when he realizes I heard. I snicker at him.

"Bye, Rog."

He bolts. As the door slams Mimi and I double over with gales of laughter. When we manage to calm ourselves she says:

"Okay, okay we're _really_ done now, promise. Let's get started."

"Cool."

She sits down Indian style on the bed, a pose I couldn't attempt with a gun to my head, and unfolds the paper carefully.

"Hey, Meems, before you start I just want to be sure of something real quick. This isn't 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me' is it?"

From what Angel said it could be that Angelou's work was her favorite too and I didn't want any reruns.

"Oh no, I know Angel called dibbs on that one don't worry. This is totally different."

"Okay. Just making sure."

"It's all good, girl, no problem. Okay…This is called 'The Latest Latin Dance Craze' by Victor Hernandez Cruz."

Her Spanish accent floods back saying the poet's name. Mimi has a very distinct voice, lower and raspier than most women's, like that of a smoker's, it adds to the aura of harsh beauty that surrounds this little East Village whirlwind.

"_First  
You throw your head back twice  
Jump out onto the floor like a  
Kangaroo  
Circle the floor once  
Doing fast scissor work with your  
Legs  
Next  
Dash towards the door  
Walking in a double cha cha cha  
Open the door and glide down  
The stairs like a swan  
Hit the street  
Run at least ten blocks  
Come back in through the same  
Door  
Doing a mambo-minuet  
Being careful that you don't fall  
And break your head on that one  
You have just completed your first  
Step_."

"Oh Meems, that's so cool!"

"It is really cool isn't it? Yeah I love this so much. Heard it for the first time when I was in high school, before I dropped out," she adds quickly. "Yeah, um, I think my first boyfriend may have showed it to me. I don't remember him really clear. All the men start to blur after a while yanno."

She forces a laugh to try and blow it off. She tries never to think about those two years between leaving home and meeting Roger. She's got enough reminders of it as it is.

"So yeah my high school boyfriend…wow does that seem like a long time gone." She shakes her head. "Yeah he was really big into books and stuff, more than me. One day and he's like, 'I found this poem that makes me think about you.' And I mean what fourteen year old girl doesn't want to hear that right?"

"Tell me about it," I agree.

"So yeah he read it for me and I liked it. So I asked him if I could have keep it and read it again. I think I only really paid attention once I didn't have him to distract me. You know what a bad attention span I have."

She cocks her head to the door Roger left through and the two of us share a good laugh.

"So yeah uh I think that's how it happened. I mean obviously the relationship didn't fly because well freshmen in high school c'mon." She laughs again, more dryly. "But yeah, the poem really stuck with me. I actually just found the copy he gave me in a box of stuff I was going through about a month ago. After all the moving and shaking I've done, believe it? And I have no clue how it got there."

"Wow." I have to admit that is a little weird. Mimi really doesn't have that much sentimental attachment to things. She's like me that way. "After all those years."

"Isn't that fucked up? Don't tell Roger, he'll probably get all weird about it. Man's jealous of the mattress I sleep on."

I snort. No way to deny it.

"But anyway," she continues. Even reading it now it still got me all fired up. It's really rare that something I read can make me feel that way."

I nod.

"So why does it make you feel so stirred, do you think?" I ask.

"Um…" Mimi twirls one of those tight, brunette spirals around her finger. "It's hard to explain. It's like…It's not just about dance. To Latin people it's never _just_ dance. Dance is tied into so many other things for us; food, language, family, sex. _Life_. I think that's the message of the poem. Whoever Victor's talking about, and I think it's a woman don't know why, he's using this dance as a way to describe her life. And it's a hard life, you know. Or else she wouldn't have to worry about '_breaking her head on that one._' '_Hit the street and run ten blocks._' She's breathless and tired from running. But she can't leave. She can't find a way to leave. That's why it says '_and come through **the same** door.'_ I can't _tell_ you how many times before I hooked up with Roger I came through the door in my apartment and felt the weight of _the same_ door. Even the way it ends. '_You've just completed the first step,_' you know. That implies that there are other steps. After all that long complicated shit she just did it's only gonna get longer and more complicated, or she's gonna have to do it all again. That's what it means to be a Latina woman. We may never get to do what we want to do but we _always_ do what we _have_ to do."

She pauses and lifts one finger with its nail painted sparkly blue.

"But," she says. "But even with all that, even with her roughness, even with her flaws, maybe even because of them, he loves her. You can tell in the way he says, '_glide down the stairs like a swan_.' And there's such grace in her '_mambo minuet_' and the way she '_throws her head back twice.'_ He loves this every-Latina. A girl like me."

There's a silence. Mimi's eyes change, like she's lost in her own thoughts. Then suddenly her head snaps forward and she grins sheepishly at me, averting her eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm talking too much."

"No!" I jump forward and take her hand in mine. She's wearing a jingly charm bracelet. "Mimi, that's so amazing. That's so cool."

"Really? Okay cool!" Her confidence is back in full force. "So, so yeah. That's all there is really. That's my favorite poem."

I nod. Then lean over and push the button to stop the recording.

"Meem, you're the coolest. Thanks so, so much. We're done."

She smiles widely. Her dark eyes crinkle up with its force.

"_De nada, niña_. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to dash towards the door and get my boyfriend back in here."

"Double cha-cha-cha!" I tease, shaking my hips.

She giggles and cuffs my cheek. Then she leaves. I follow her out the door.

Not the same door, I don't think.


	10. Roger

Roger Davis, 29, Guitarist

Last, but most definitely not least, we come to Roger. I go back to the room he shares with Mimi. Upon inspection of the walls it looks something like Dorm Room Meets Seventies Love Den. Everything Mimi owns is coated in either neon color or varying faux animal prints. His beloved fender guitar Margarita sits propped up against the wall, a testament to the timeless deities of rock. Over the green wall paint Roger has put up posters of his gods; Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd and of course, his favorite and mine, Jim Morrison. Recently I've become obsessed with the long dead poet of rock and roll and Roger has been more than happy to be my guide.

Roger himself is asleep across the zebra printed bed, hands behind his head. I pad over in my socks and lay a hand on his shoulder. He opens one green eye and grins lopsidedly.

"Should I come back?"

"Nah, nah, nah, dude. It's all good. I was just resting my eyes," he yawns. I fight back a smile. Open a little wider, I can't see all your fillings.

I put my recorder on the floor and hit the key. I sit next to him. The warmth from his sleep radiates a little to me. Roger shakes a lock of dirty blonde hair from his eyes.

"Okay…Oh wait one more second."

He scoots over to find the crumpled piece of paper I assume is his poem. I shake my head.

"I know, I know. Okay, I'm ready. I'm pumped. I'm in the zone."

"You're a dork. Read on, Davis, my man."

"Okay. Well I know you're gonna be shocked and amazed but the poem I picked is…by Jim!"

"Rog!" I fake astonishment for a minute, then lean forward in anticipation. "Which one is it? I've got to know!"

"Well I really wanted to do 'Celebration of the Lizard,'" he admits. "But I mean come on you can't just read that thing like you would a regular poem. Same with 'The Soft Parade.' Those are my two favorites really. But one day I'll get drunk and be the Lizard King for you. On your birthday."

I laugh. Then suddenly get an idea.

"Okay so for you I think I want to switch things up a little," I tell him. "What I've done with all the other guys was to have them read the poem first and then talk about it. But I think since you're the last one we should end on some words of wisdom. So I think I want to do it backwards. Do you mind?"

He waves dismissively.

"Nah dude, it's your thing you do what you want. Ask away. Let's talk some Jim."

Roger always calls me dude.

"Okay great! So when did you first get into his poetry? How did you and Jim meet so to speak?"

"Oh man..." He lies back on the pillow for a second and sucks in his breath. "Let me think about that."

Instead of thinking, he gets up lazily and goes to the corner, taking Margarita under his arm and coming back.

"Help me out, girl," he says to her. "I'm gettin' old. Don't remember stuff like I used to."

I try not to roll my eyes. But my irritation fades as he begins to pluck the guitar tabs to _Love Me Two Times _from The Doors' 'Waiting for the Sun' album.

"It's hard to say an exact time I guess," he says, still playing. "I mean by the time I was born I'd already missed the wave, forget when I was old enough to know. But I think I was in the…sixth grade when it opened up. I hung out with a lot of older dudes because ya know I'm such hot shit."

This time I do roll my eyes.

"Oh yea, steaming," I mock.

He gives me a smirking grin and goes on like he didn't hear.

"But anyway I hung out with these bunch a like thirty year old hippie sorta guys and they were like Doors _maniacs_ man! They'd followed the band around the whole country, gone to France to write stuff on Jim's grave, the whole works. All the stuff you and me always wish we could do. Anyway they were always playing his music. I think the first song I really sat down and listened to was "Peace Frog" and I don't know, man. There's no way to describe listening to Jim, you know what I'm saying. It was just incredible. I'd never heard anything like it. It was poetry and music and drama and, I dunno, _drugs_. I still have no idea!"

Roger is getting really excited, waving his arms with his hair swishing all around. Then he stops, panting a little, and gives what could very well be described as a contented sigh.

"And I just got hooked. I rapidly became the insane fan you see before you."

He makes a grandiose gesture with his hands. I clap for him.

"In high school I was even worse. I was Robbie Krieger in a Long Island tribute band called Knocking at the Doors."

I actually scream. I lean forward more and yell:

"GET OUT! Oh my God, did you do _Spanish Caravan_?"

"The flamenco part and all!" he shouts proudly. I squeal and he nods feverishly

"Yea I earned money for all of my college expenses playing _Light my Fire_ until my fingers bled."

He roars with laughter at the better days and wiping tears of merriment from his eyes mutters:

"My god. What I time. What a guy he must've been huh?"

"Yeah," I sigh.

There's another pause. Roger keeps playing the chords. After a minute I ask:

"How do you feel when you hear him?"

Roger is quiet for a while.

"I guess…I guess the only word is inspired. When I listen to his voice and his words I think about how weird life is. I mean, the guy died so young but…but he'll never really die. That's what I see when I look at you and you're pissed off and singing _Five to One_ to make yourself feel better. Or when I put _The Soft Parade_ on and even Erik knows the words. _That's_ immortality, man, for real. That's what it is. Maybe the reason he died so young is so that would be all we remembered of him. All his best."

I nod. It's the only thing I can do. At my side I hear the crackley unfolding of crinkled paper.

"_WELCOME TO THE AMERICAN NIGHT by Jim Morrison__  
Welcome to the American Night  
where dogs bite  
to find the voice  
the face the fate the fame  
to be tamed  
by The Night  
in a quiet soft luxuriant  
car  
Hitchhikers line the Great Highway._

_**We must tie all these  
desperate impressions together**__"_

♫♫♫


End file.
